The author does a very nice job incorporating primary source documents into his narrative, and he quotes from them fairly liberally. USS South Carolina did have one innovation the Royal Navy had not yet incorporated: super-firing main battery turrets. She was completed on 1 March 1910 her construction took over three years. Although some naval authorities credit the Americans with designing the first dreadnought battleship, the USS South Carolina (BB-26) was not laid down until 18 December 1906. The British ship-building advantage was even greater compared to the Americans. By 1910, on average, the British could build a battleship in twenty-four months, whereas the Germans took thirty-six months (p.26). HMS Dreadnought went from keel laying to commissioning (2 October 1905 to 11 December 1906) in just over one year. However, Britain was unsurpassed in both the number of dreadnoughts it completed, and in the time it took to complete them. Given that in 1895, both Germany and the United States exceeded Great Britain in total steel production, this was a risky gamble. In 1906, the British had a lead of a single dreadnought. McNab underscores how controversial the decision was to switch from the forty-five pre-dreadnoughts the Royal Navy had from 1901 to 1904 which had a massive superiority over any foreign fleet. “Jackie” Fisher, Sir Philip Watts, the Director of Naval Construction, future Fleet Admiral John Jellicoe, the Director of Naval Ordnance, and Italian naval engineer Vittorio Emilio Cuniberti with helping to push the design concept forward.ĭreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts deals with the design, development, operation, and combat history of these capital ships. McNab credits the First Sea Lord, Admiral John A. The threat posed by torpedoes, improvements in gunnery, fire control, and the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, where firing commenced at 7,000 yards, all contributed to the concept of an all-big-gun ship. Indeed, McNab seems to question whether HMS Dreadnought’s 12-pounders (which fired three-inch shells) were even truly a secondary armament. McNab noted that whereas typical naval battles had commenced at around 2,000 yards in the 1890s, by the opening years of the 20 th century, the range was increasing and there was less need for a mixed or intermediate armament.
This 223-page book is divided into an interestingly selected timeline of events, an introduction, six chapters, a conclusion, further reading section, and an index.Ī fair amount of space is devoted to the genesis, conception, and rationale for building all-big-gun battleships and battle cruisers. which provide a good deal of visual information that historians, modelers, and others can utilize. There are hundreds of pictures, illustrations, diagrams, tables, etc. Just the same, McNab observed HMS Dreadnought set off an international naval race in capital ships, transformed naval tactics, and had an outsized impact on international relations.ĭreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts is part of the Casemate Illustrated Special Series. A Jarticle in The Times concluded the construction of HMS Dreadnought resulted in more of an evolution, not a revolution in capital ship development. Chris McNab, author of Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts, takes a more nuanced approach in his book about these epoch-setting ships. Capital ships built before 1906 with a mixed or intermediate main armament, were thereafter termed pre-dreadnoughts. Indeed, all-big-gun battleships from 1906 forward were considered dreadnoughts or, subsequently, super-dreadnoughts. Battleship buffs and authorities on capital ships are familiar with the dictum that once HMS Dreadnought was commissioned in 1906, all existing battleships thereby became obsolete.
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